Date of Award

5-1992

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ded)

Abstract

Inconsistency of financial resources, increased demand for program results, and growing demographic problems have significantly impacted school districts in North Dakota and are reason for studying the participants and factors associated with the adoption of education policy. Education policy participants--the registered lobbyists, governance personnel, and legislative leaders--were asked to respond to a pre- and post-session questionnaire to determine their perceptions .of differing education policy participants in regard to the usefulness of information provided and about the degree of influence exerted on a legislative agenda. In addition, respondents identified the relative importance of factors which were considered significant in the adoption of education policy and assessed the following points of the policy forming processes: the policy proposal, the committee activity /influencing, and the legislator vote influencing points. Responses were analyzed statistically to determine if there were differences in responses in regard to the usefulness of information provided and the degree of influence exerted and whether there were differences between the pre- and post-session perceptions of the respondents as well as differing respondent perceptions for differing education initiatives.

T-tests, ANOVAs, and Tukey's HSD multiple comparisons tests were conducted to analyze the responses. Data analysis indicated that respondents perceived little change to have occurred from their pre- to post-session responses. Further, no differences were noted in the ratings respondents gave for differing education initiatives. Analysis of the perceptions indicated that legislative leaders, especially education committee chairpersons, provided the most useful information; the registered lobbyists, especially the North Dakota School Boards Association, exerted the most influence with the ratings given legislative leaders only slightly lower than registered lobbyists. Differences were noted between the ratings of important factors among all three respondent groups. Legislative leaders perceived committee hearings as most important while registered lobbyists and governance personnel indicated economy and budget concerns as having the most impact on policy adoption. Respondents identified committee activity /influencing (marshalling influence) as the most important point of influence in the policy process.

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